~ I Simply Decided to be Happy Again…

This Marriage of Mine

You know, I had this post about how having a baby hasn’t killed my marriage. People warn you of that, how having a baby changes your marriage. Of course it does! So does building a home, losing a job, changing jobs, getting married, losing a parent, moving states and a million other things. Everything that happens in life changes your marriage, not just having a baby. If having a child ruins your marriage, well, you didn’t have a good one to start with. Truth.

Here I thought we were doing fine. I mean, we have our days and nights, for that matter, where we get snippy and annoyed with one another. We have resentment when one feels like they are doing more than the other, waking up more at night, changing more diapers, working longer hours or has more snot on their shirt. Our sex life isn’t non-existent, it isn’t what it was before but nothing that makes me worry. We carve out time for sex, dates, talks that don’t include just the baby and the hubby reminds me that I’m beautiful and I make sure to smack his ass and tell him he looks good on the way out the door.

Cue pure exhaustion from a baby with hand, foot, mouth disease. Nights of no sleep. Trying to make the best of Father’s Day for the hubby.

Cue wine that went straight to my head.

Cue a husband that made an off-hand remark that just snapped me. Any other time I would have laughed. I took the baby for a bath instead and cried.

By the time we went to bed, well, I don’t know how the talk started. We shouldn’t have had a talk like this when I was this tired and drinking but he kept going.

We went to bed with all these words and questions hanging in the air. I spent the next couple of days with a sick, clingy, baby and he left to work out of town. This left me with time to be pissed, over think, be frustrated and annoyed.

We didn’t discuss it on the phone or via text because that is a rule of ours. Serious talks need to be had face to face. So when he came home last night, we put the baby to bed, handed the monitor to my sister and took off on a walk to hash things out.

One mile later, we were back on the same page. We had ventured too far off the page from one another. While I’m good about verbalizing what is wrong, he is not as good. Mainly because if he doesn’t stop and think about his words, they come out really wrong and create more of an issue. Which is what happened Sunday night.

A mile after that we were back to normal, catching up on the past couple of days. We were back to where I knew our marriage was at but sometimes we need to stop and self check a bit better with one another.

We have chosen to be very mindful of having a marriage separate from being parents. We don’t want to lose “us” in the day to day of raising a child. Some days that is harder than others when a baby consumes a lot of our energy and time but we make it work. But what happens in our marriage influences us as parents and that changes our family as a whole.

oh man. this hit the nail on the head today. For the first 6 months or so, I was all — ” I don’t know what people are talking about! this marriage thing is easy! It’s never been better! We’re so happy with the baby” vomit, vomit, vomit. Cue last night. My husband–after working a 72-hour shift, comes home Wednesday morning. He doesn’t have to pick the baby up until 2 from daycare. I get home at 5:30 (haven’t seen him since Sunday night, it is now Wednesday) and he proceeds to take a NAP. A NAP. I ended up doing dinner with the baby, bathing him, getting him ready for bed, all by myself, just like I do every night he is at work. SO essentially, I am living the life of a single mom all the freaking time even though I’m married. You can imagine how the convo went Him: “I should be able to nap I worked 3 days in a row” Me: “I’ve been going nonstop since you’ve been gone, you don’t think I want a nap? Where is my uninterrupted 90-minute break from life?!” There was no resolution. I’m exhausted. He’s exhausted. I feel like we’ve had this convo in every variation possible non-stop the past month or so. And nothing changes… I’m just feeling defeated today. He’s back at work. I’m back to being a single mom.

Once again, why do we not live closer? Oh, the nap fight. Yep. We have that too. And the single Mom feeling fucking sucks. You and I do not live in a world where our husbands work 9-5 and are there to help balance. One is primary parent and there is no getting around it. It is impossible and it sucks. It really puts possibly having a second child in a new perspective.

Love the honest post! But if you can be back on the same page after a 2-3 mile walk, I think your marriage is doing just fine 😉 tiredness makes everything worse!! I will let you know next year how mine has gone with the addition of a baby….

Friend, while I cannot comment on how difficult it has to be – no matter how strong a marriage is – to have a baby and how THAT affects your marriage, I can say that how you two approached this and got through is it EXACTLY how you should have…and so smartly so. Love you friend, once again, I admire and respect how you’ve taken on motherhood part deux! xo

This is Me

I'm Sanibel and I'm your cruise director for this blog. I'm also a wife and a mom but those aren't my only jobs. I have a tendency to drink the wine and then write, which leads to more than you care to read about. I have a daily need for Yoga and Kenny Chesney, in no particular order. If you can find me a beach then life is good but I don't have a lot of sand for my toes in these cornfields. Welcome to the ride.